
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 15, 1994                   TAG: 9402150116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA                                LENGTH: Medium

U.N. WARNS SERBS TO GIVE UP GUNS OR FACE ATTACK

The U.N. commander for Bosnia told the country's Serbs on Monday they must give his forces control of their heavy guns by Sunday or face air attack by NATO.

Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose's statement stepped up the pressure on Bosnian Serbs, who control most of the artillery ringing Sarajevo, and closed the gap between plans developed by the United Nations and NATO for ending 22 months of bloodshed.

Rose gained a cease-fire agreement for Sarajevo on Wednesday, just hours before NATO told Bosnian Serbs to remove their heavy weapons by midnight next Sunday or face air strikes.

While the NATO plan calls for the weapons to be removed to more than 13 miles from Sarajevo, Rose's plan simply called for them to be placed under U.N. control.

Rose said Monday that the U.N.'s exclusion zone for weapons around Sarajevo will be enforced by the end of this week.

"Any heavy weapons there will be either under U.N. control or subject of an air attack," he said after meeting with Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic. He said that applied both to Bosnian Serb weapons and those controlled by the outgunned Bosnian government.

The ultimatum came four days after a mortar attack on Sarajevo's central market killed 68 people and wounded 200. The attack is widely believed to have been made by Bosnian Serbs.

In other developments:

The Serbs turned in two more artillery pieces Monday, bringing to 28 the total they have given up. The Bosnian government has turned in 10 of the about 50 heavy weapons it holds.

More than 500 heavy weapons are said to ring the Sarajevo area, the center of fighting involving secessionist Muslims and Croats and hard-line Bosnian Serbs since spring 1992.

Saying only a combination of force and diplomacy can end the death and destruction in Bosnia, U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright told the U.N. Security Council that Serbian defiance would invite "bitter consequences."

She advocated a break in "the stalemate in Geneva," three-way negotiations on the partition of Bosnia into ethnic ministates - Muslim, Serb and Croatian.

U.N. officials reported a weekend without casualties for the first time in the 22-month siege. That was a "very heartening sign," said a U.N. spokesman, Lt. Col. Bill Aikman.

"It was very quiet overnight in Sarajevo in particular," Aikman said. "The cease-fire is definitely holding."

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB